This guy has not only rocked America's finest galleries from P.S.1 to Cohan and Leslie, and all over Chicago. He has also landed himself in the freshest art book to date (in my opinion) Vitamin D and even better, he is currently working on his best drawing ever.

I'm not going to try and be fancy this time. I am not going to use some kind of memorable story or creative analogy to illustrate how super fucking magical and awesome (yes, actually awe inspiring) this man's drawings are. It's really a plain and straightforward issue here people, there are no arguments.

Also, be very careful of this guy. I once went to a group show fall spring and saw him, single handedly, with one drawing, turn every other piece in the show into camouflage! You couldn't even tell they were there anymore. I had not been exposed to a mesmerizing power that could isolate my attention like that since I bought the Wu Tang Clan's 36 Chambers on cassette tape from a grocery store in Colorado in 7th grade and listened to it in the back of my parents van for days on end. Damn! I just broke the only 2 parameters I set for myself. Old habits die-hard for me and new ones maybe even harder, like staring at Frank Magnotta's drawings.

This guy has not only rocked America's finest galleries from P.S.1 to Cohan and Leslie, and all over Chicago. He has also landed himself in the freshest art book to date (in my opinion) Vitamin D and even better, he is currently working on his best drawing ever.

Tell us a little bit about yourself, Frank.

I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the 70's, in the midst of a recession. Back then, my friends and I would wander around downtown, through all these empty modernist plazas and parking lots. I remember having an uncanny feeling in those cold, abstract spaces. It felt a little like a being in a De Chiricho painting. Since us kids were virtually the only people around, there was a strange sense of possession and identification amidst all the alienation. It must've stuck with me, seeing the way that my work has developed and why architecture has been important to me. After a youth of wandering around Grand Rapids I went to Hope College and then moved to Minneapolis. One winter there was enough for me, so after that I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I got my M.F.A. Then, in 1997, I moved to New York.

As far as I can tell, everything you have ever made is pretty huge.
Why the scale choice?

Regarding the scale- it's a way to make a monumental work. But there is something paradoxical in it, since these monuments can only exist on paper. The drawing resides in an ambiguity, between physical and conceptual worlds. The scale creates a tension. Architecture that typically towers over us is shrunken down to human proportions. So in a way the drawings are big and small at the same time.

How do you approach a 5 by 5-foot piece of paper when it is blank?

I'm not really daunted by blank paper. I do a lot of prep work before
I start so I usually have a good idea of which direction I want to go in. Maybe it is my mathematical or sculptural background, but I really think concretely about what I'm going to do before beginning. I admire people who can just go off on blank paper; personally I don't think that way. After planning I usually sketch a structural framework on the paper to give me guides to work and play with.

I used to work on the wall standing, but that became too exhausting. I was heading straight for Carpal Tunnel. Now I use an adjustable drawing table that I built. My best sculpture to date!

Why drawings?

I've always liked the lightness of drawing. However complex, intricate, and large the drawings get they can never escape the fact that they are still on paper. For me, the material offsets the scale and monumentality of the image.

And finally why all black and white?

Honestly, I've never really thought or been interested in color. I swear I dream in black and white, so, to me, this lack of color represents a more internal process. In a way the neutrality gives the work a coolness as well as a distance from the very colorful and dynamic media that it's culled from.

Also given how elaborate your work is, how do you decide if a piece is finally resolved?

It is tough, but probably not as tough as resolving an abstract painting. I usually have a concept and an overall structure that I start with, but things change and develop through the process as I layer and combine more elements. In general I'm satisfied with a drawing once there is a certain energy or unsettledness in the image.

What, in your eyes, is your finest drawing? Do you think you might have made your ultimate masterpiece yet?

Usually I'm most excited about whatever I'm currently working on. I don't think I could finish a piece, if I that wasn't the case. My view of that piece may change over time, but I really don't know if the work itself changes qualitatively. I'd like to think that all my works are in a dialogue together, and the conversation just gets fuller as more pieces enter the discussion.

Dominic Molon described your work as "post everything". Would you agree with that?

I like the phrase, but I think of my work as being immediate, so would that be post? Maybe it is more present, more now. Present everything? I mean present in the sense that I'm bringing together all of these related, but somehow disparate, elements from our contemporary culture and combining them into aberrant constructions. In a way I'm trying to understand and give form to our boundless mediated culture.

How do you go about conceiving these elaborate structures, both architecturally and biologically? I have tried to imagine what it would be like if you were to construct a real building, like a fast food establishment.

For the buildings, I typically start by collecting logos and graphics from related societal or cultural sources. By combining the logos and giving them depth I'm able to create structures that represent a collective space. In the U.S. I'm not sure that we really build monuments any more, but in a way popular culture is the great ephemeral American monument. I'm interested in giving form to that.

The portraits were created in a similar process to the architecture, but instead of creating structures that represented a social body, I turned it inward. I was interested in how the logos both formed and deformed the individual.

Concerning the character based drawings; the titles allude to specific roles that these characters fulfill. Is there some sort of developing narrative or hidden meaning there?

I don't know if there is a narrative per se, but there is a correlation between the type of character and how that character was built. Each character is an amalgamation of graphics from certain types of institutions that are prevalent today and that affect our daily lives. For example, by combining medical and pharmaceutical graphics I created the portrait "The Happy Accident" which reads as a patient wrapped in gauze.

Name drop list (bands movies food artists anything you think the people at large might enjoy)

Artists that had a big influence on me and that I'm big fans of are
Jim Shaw, Pieter Bruegel, Albrecht Durer, Piranesi, James Ensor, Ivan
Albright, Ed Ruscha, Richard Artschwager, and Fischli and Weiss.
I recently saw "Even Dwarfs Started Small" by Werner Herzog. It was possibly one of the most disturbing and enthralling movies I've seen. I couldn't look away. It was in black and white too. I've been making my way through the complete set of "Kids in the Hall" which is hilarious. It makes me want to move to Canada. George Saunders, Steven
Millhauser, are authors I like a lot and feel I have some kinship with. The Weakerthans song "Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure" has been playing a lot in my kitchen.

Anything exciting going on in the near future for you?

I've just started a new drawing tentatively called "USA Today" which
I'm excited about. I've always been fascinated by that publication and this drawing is based on it. This is it. The one. Best ever.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

Just want to say congrats to Fecal Face's Rachel Ralph for graduating from SFAI with her masters in curatorial studies. Also want to congratulate Alex Ziv who also just got his MFA in painting. Also a high five to the talented Mario Ayala who also just graduated from SFAI as well! --- All super talented artists (thinkers), and we're excited to see what the future holds for them!

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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